I read a few years back, probably in the wsj, that one of the best trends to hit coffee farmers was the revival of good coffee. when folgers and Maxwell house were king, people just wanted coffee as cheaply as possible. for them to sstay on top, they had to deliver it. This mean that they shopped for the cheapest coffee and it meant that growers had to produce coffee as cheaply as possible. As attention turned to the quality of coffee, grower's who began to learn more about how to produce higher quality, which in turn demanded higher prices, made more money. In some ways it would have paid for coffee growers to educate the public about the benefits of good coffee a long time ago. Jersey dropped its famous tomato in pursuit of cheaper tomatoes that shipped well. Rather than producing high quality tomatoes, they tried to compete with heavily subsidized california and mexico. big mistake. anyways, it's not directly related to fair trade but I thought it might be relevant.

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